


Breathe In

by WanderingSummerBreeze



Category: Outlander (TV) RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 05:57:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10915731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingSummerBreeze/pseuds/WanderingSummerBreeze
Summary: Can you go back?





	Breathe In

Goodbye’s are hard. Sometimes the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do, especially when it’s to someone you cannot live without, but are forced to. It’s the closest thing to reading an epic novel, where the lovers struggle to find their way back to one another, then, in a turning of a page, you realize they never will. There’s no more pages left. Their story is over. And you’re broken because of it. The long journey you took with them, just weaves a path to emptiness and sorrow. That is your end.

Goodbye’s are hard.

But hellos are worse.

I ran my finger, round and round, the beer stein. My palms, sweating like before a sold-out show; nervous to be watched, to be studied and judged. I closed my eyes, shutting the clinking glasses and muffled conversations, away.

Breathe in.

Hold.

Breathe out – slowly.

Repeat.

My mind whipped around like Dorothy in a tornado, struggling to grasp onto anything that flew past. Fighting for something to ground myself to. But all I could see was her face. Her face the last time we spoke. The sadness in her eyes as they welled up with tears she refused to let fall. The constant rubbing of her right thumb on her left arm. A nervous tick I had never noticed before. Or perhaps, one that was brought on by me.

Breathe in.

Hold.

Breathe out – slowly.

Repeat.

The first time I saw her, I knew I was no longer living for myself. I was living for her. For us. She once told me, that it was my smile, cascading across the room in her direction, that she first fell in love with the idea of me. All her independent and cynical thoughts had floated away, and she felt a wave of heaviness, strike her chest, like an arrow to a tree. It thundered against her heart, waking her up, and when she smiled back at me, it lifted, transporting her soul to some place soft. A room filled with light and pillows, and girlie things.

Of course, she didn’t tell me that freely. It took a lot of alcohol, and her whimsical side shining through the fog of whisky, that made me brave enough to ask her what her first thought of me was.

I remember smiling, not knowing how to respond, other than lean in, and gently touch my lips to hers. I don’t know if it was the warmth of our bodies, or the haze of the drink, that made my lips fiery against hers. Or was it her lips that scorched mine? I don’t know. But together, the passion we had been holding so deep inside, erupted like a force of nature; a storm ripping through the amazon.

Our limbs tangled like snakes around a vine, and the glow of the table lamp behind us, like lightning, playing across our skin, illuminating the flesh in the most delicious way. We devoured each other, our thrusts meeting together in a thunderous sky as the water pooled around our collarbones, chest and curve of body. We lapped at the sweat, like desiccated animals, traveling through the dessert; our bodies, the oasis that we yearned for.

And when the winds and rain calmed, and the stars came out in their twinkling promise of peace, we held on to each other, and painted our future in the nights’ sky.

But that was a long time ago.

I dropped my head, before raising it once more, begging for calm.

Breathe in.

Hold.

Breathe out – slowly.

Repeat.

I couldn’t change the past. Couldn’t alter the pain the last year had brought us. Brought her. All I could do, was take her hand, if she let me, and guide her back into the forest, where the stars are brightest, and retrace our steps, reconnect the stars, to find our way back home.

There was never a time I didn’t love you, Caitriona. Never a time I couldn’t see our children in your hands, or my reflection in your eyes. You painted me a man, when I was only a boy. Perhaps a part of me was angry at you for that. Perhaps a part of me, was angry at myself for not trusting in the stroke of your brush.

My eyes darted to my watch, the ticking of time, pounding into my subconscious. Its face, contorted into a sinister mask, the tongue darting out, to take hold of the hands, stilling them, stopping them. Stopping time. If ten o’clock never came, neither would she.

I rolled my wrist on the table, effectively suffocating the motionless timepiece. I took another swig of the beer, and cringed when my peripheral caught the sight of stains under my arm. I checked the other side. Matching anxiety.

Breathe in.

Hold.

Breathe out – slowly.

Repeat.

I wanted my life back. I wanted the promise of _our_ life, back. No more games. No more silly roundabouts, stuck on a never-ending carousal with someone else’s hand on the power switch. Each time I slid off the plastic horse, eager to find her, sitting in one of those red carriages with her hands, barely holding on, the wind would push me right back on my steed. And round and round we went.

The page needed to turn. This chapter, begged for a close. My very _insides_ needed there to be one last summary. A chapter we would write. Together. No editors or ghost writers throwing in twists and creating chaos, when none was called for. Just an ending, that would flow into a new beginning.

The wind swirled around the trees outside, and my heart stopped. A flicker of hair, deep chestnut in colour, swirled around the breeze like Dorothy, flying through the skies in her very own tornado.

Breathe in.

“Caitriona.” Her name falling from my lips in a hush, like a secret, my body couldn’t contain. She came.

Hold.

Her hand touched the doorknob and stilled. She hadn’t seen me yet. Her eyes closed, fighting the wind, and fighting her thoughts.

She gathered them quickly, pulling open the door to step inside. She shook of the cold and rested her eyes on mine.

Breathe out –

slowly.

 

 


End file.
